[mainbodyad]Not only would it allow me to clear out my remaining ingredients, I figured I’d send it out to friends and family to get feedback on whether it should become a staple of the kitchen. Everyone was evenly divided. Half liked the normal, old-fashion latticework apple pie, the other half liked this ridiculously excessive, streusel-topped nutritional bomb that contained a grand total of – wait for it – 4,864 calories. Each pie, equal to 1/8th of the pie, comes in at 608 calories per slice. For a typical, grown adult that isn’t too bad given you are supposed to have 2,000 calories in a day, provided you’ve budgeted for it.

I used eight granny smith apples. The recipe said you can use any tart apple. It needs to offset the sweetness of the caramel and sugar.

Peel those apples …

Once peeled, cut them up and put the apple chunks into a bowl. Toss it with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Next, you need to prepare that bowl over to the right …

Mix that second bowl together so it forms a powdery, pecan assortment that resembles a desert landscape with rocks.

Next, dump the powdery mixture from the right bowl into the left bowl, which held your apples, which are already coated in the lemon juice and vanilla we talked about.

Put 1 unbaked 9-inch pastry shell into a pie dish. I had four extra scraps of homemade pie dough I needed to use left over from Thanksgiving. They did not want to blend together so it looks a bit of a mess since I had to hack it by manually shoving it into the nooks and crannies.

Use 1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping, at room temperature, to coat the bottom of the pastry shell.

… and melt 3 tablespoons of butter. Pour that melted butter over the top of the pie filling.

In a new bowl, we need to start the streusel topping for the pie. Take 3/4 cup all-purpose flour, 2/3 cup chopped pecans, and 1/4 cup sugar …

… and mix it together.

Finally, cut 6 tablespoons of cold butter into small chunks that you mix into the bowl by hand until the whole thing looks like a loose, crumbly topping.

Sprinkle that topping over the pie. Bake it in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 55 to 65 minutes or “until filling is bubbly and topping is browned” according to the recipe source.

Once it’s baked, the moment it comes out of the oven, drizzle 1/4 cup of caramel ice cream topping on the pie. Cool on a wire rack until it’s reached a safe temperature to eat, which might take an hour or three.

Look at that caramel pecan goodness …

Oh yeah …

Personally, I like the other pie best but I have lost the ability to just bake one as there are family members demanding this be remade. This streusel topping is worth having in the recipe file by itself, though.

It’s always odd to try and fit your life story into a few lines but here is the short version: My name is Joshua Kennon. I’m 36 years old. My husband, Aaron, and I met and fell in love as teenagers. Neither of us ever even dated anyone else – we knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. After graduating from high school, we moved from the Midwest to the East Coast where we studied classical music and a wide range of liberal arts.

Later, we returned to the Kansas City area to be near family. During this period, which spanned nearly thirteen years and lasted from our early twenties into our mid-thirties, we started several Internet companies and spent much of our time semi-retired, managing our own wealth thanks to the financial independence those businesses helped us achieve. I also wrote a lot during those years. In fact, the odds are good that you’ve directly or indirectly encountered me many times without realizing it. For nearly 17 years, I was the Investing for Beginners Expert at what was then known as About.com. I am the co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Investing, 3rd Edition.

These days, we spend our time running and growing the firm, as we plan on it being the institution through which we pass on our own family’s wealth to our future children and grandchildren. The experience, particularly meeting such incredible people, has been one of the most rewarding of our lives. It’s a rare thing to have a career that allows you to not only do what you love for a living, but to do it with people you admire, respect, and like. We feel like two of the most blessed guys in the world.

This personal blog is a place where I talk about some of the things that interest me – cooking, finance, entrepreneurship, politics, history, economics. I’m really proud of the community we’ve built, in no small part because the typical reader around here is exceptional. Please note that in preparation of the launch of the asset management business, and to better protect our family’s privacy, Aaron and I removed thousands of articles, posts, and comments from this blog, reducing it to a fraction of its former size. This means if you are looking for something that existed prior to us coming out of retirement, the odds are good it simply isn’t available anymore.

Important Information and Disclaimers

IMPORTANT LEGAL INFORMATION: This is a personal blog intended for academic, educational, and social engagement among members of a like-minded community. Nothing on this site is intended or should be construed as investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, or legal advice. You are solely responsible for your own financial decisions, agree that you will seek the advice of your own qualified professional advisors, agree that you, and you alone, are solely responsible for any financial consequences or losses as a result of your actions, and use of the site constitutes your agreement that you will not rely upon any information found on the site, including the comments. All text, images, and resources are provided on an “as is” basis with no guarantee of accuracy and with no obligation to update or correct information. For more information, read the terms and conditions. Copyright Joshua Kennon. All Rights Reserved.